Shopping around: comparison shopping Websites Jan 1, 2005 12:00 PM
, By Heather Retzlaff
JobZone
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“You should be able to dip a toe in the
water without long-term onerous costs or time constraints,” says
Rimm-Kaufman, who encourages catalogers to dig into the reports issued
by the comparison sites to see what's really going on. High-ticket
items may not be selling well, for instance, but lower-ticket items
with add-ons and upsells can easily make up for the difference.
Rimm-Kaufman's best advice: Evaluate the data often, and don't be
afraid to “slice and dice” the information to take out underperforming
products.
Make
a point of visiting the shopping sites yourself, suggests Lloyd-Martin,
paying attention to the categories you click on, and looking at
listings in categories you're interested in entering. From those
findings, you'll know what you need when you're ready to start working
with the shopping engine to maximize the reach of your listings.
Lloyd-Martin
also recommends talking with other companies who use comparison
shopping engines to gain a better understanding of how to streamline
submitting data feeds and pictures and how to analyze ROI. “Get a hint
of what you're up against and dealing with,” she says.
As
to whether to go with free listings with comparison shopping sites like
Froogle or paid sites like PriceGrabber.com, “everyone digs the free
stuff,” notes Lloyd-Martin. Although free listings may not generate as
many purchases as paid listings, the added revenue is money that cost
you virtually nothing to earn.
Lloyd-Martin
doesn't recommend using only free listings, however, because they may
not provide a significant lift in sales. Instead, she advocates
supplementing free listings with paid listings on other sites such as
Shopping.com and Yahoo! Shopping.
And
even if you don't offer the lowest price on a comparison engine, most
experts recommend getting in on the game. About 70% of click-throughs
on comparison sites are not on the merchant with the lowest price, says
Jupiter's Evans. More online shoppers are seeking a quality experience.
“Yes, people care about price, but it's not necessarily all about
price,” she says. “It's about the customer getting the best deal and
getting the best product at the right price from the right retailer at
the right time.”
And
before you take the plunge, be sure that your Website is ready to
handle the increased traffic that will be sent its way, says
Rimm-Kaufman. If your site has a poor transaction mechanism, think
carefully before hooking up with a comparison shopping engine. These
customers are ready to buy, so your site must be ready to handle the
transaction quickly.
Making it work
Just
because your company is listed on a comparison site doesn't mean
shoppers will click the link to your site. “Realize that on that search
results page you have little opportunity to make an impact,”
Lloyd-Martin says.
Which
means you need to make the most of what opportunity you have. Most
experts agree that consumer interest increases with each additional bit
of information you can provide them. So to encourage shoppers to click
on your link as opposed to the link above or below yours, try including
a logo with your listing and citing the total costs including shipping
and tax; you might also add consumer reviews.
On
your own site, it's crucial to pack each product page with your
company's basic information. Visitors directed to your site from a
comparison shopping engine will be bypassing your home page and
parachuting directly onto the product page.
“Product
pages need to be mini home pages,” says Rimm-Kaufman. “You not only
need to make the case of why they should buy a widget, but why they
should buy a widget from you.”
Kent,
WA-based outdoor-gear merchant Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI)
struggles with how best to greet customers arriving directly on a
product page. “That puts a burden upon us to tell our story on that
product page and put our value proposition on that page,” says REI
spokesperson Mike Foley.
To
make a strong impression on its product pages, REI includes detailed
information about the product, how to use it, and its benefits. The
pages also feature links to REI's contact and guarantee information and
to the FAQs page. While he won't share details, Foley says that
comparison shopping engines have indeed helped increase sales and
traffic to the REI Website.
Once
you're up and running on a comparison shopping engine you need to
constantly review the information you're providing the shopping site
and the information it's providing you.
Relegating
the data feed for products to your IT department is a “huge mistake”
according to Rimm-Kaufman, because feeds are marketing documents in
that the choice of words, offers, and structures is vital to success.
Retail
Brand Alliance, which owns apparel merchants Brooks Brothers and Casual
Corner, has been working with direct response marketing firm SendTec to
improve its data feeds. On Shopping.com recently, for instance, only
five Brooks Brothers listings appeared in the men's clothing category,
says Angie McCloskey, vice president of business development for St.
Petersburg, FL-based SendTec. In the same category, outdoor products
marketer Bass Pro Shop had 6,252 products listed.
“What
that's telling you is that products are not pulled correctly through
data feeds,” McCloskey says. But by fine-tuning the feeds with
better-written copy and an understanding of how the comparison engine
categorizes products, she adds, you can increase a company's visibility
on a comparison site.
For
Kristen Pollock, search and affiliate manager for Brooks Brothers and
Casual Corner, improving the brands' visibility on Froogle and
Shopping.com is a priority. “We have extensive product catalogs for
Brooks Brothers and Casual Corner, and obviously these are places we
want to be,” she says.
